Darkest India eBook

Supposing that a similar percentage be allowed for
India, we are face to face with the awful fact that
the “submerged tenth” consists of no less
than twenty-six millions of human beings, who
are in a state of destitution bordering upon absolute
starvation! No less an authority than Sir William
Hunter has estimated their numbers at fifty millions,
and practically his testimony remains unimpeached.

Indeed I have heard it confidently stated by those
who are in a good position to form a judgement, that
at least one hundred millions of the population of
India scarcely ever know from year’s end to year’s
end what it is to have a satisfying meal, and that
it is the rule and not the exception for them to retire
to rest night after night hungry and faint for want
of sufficient and suitable food.

I am not going, however to argue in favor of so enormous
a percentage of destitution. I would rather believe,
at any rate for the time being, that such an estimate
is considerably exaggerated. Yet do what we will,
it is impossible for any one who has lived in such
close and constant contact with the poor, as we have
been doing for the last eight or nine years, to blink
the fact, that destitution of a most painful character
exists, to a very serious extent, even when harvests
are favorable and the country is not desolated by
the scourge of famine.

Nor do I think that there would be much difficulty
in proving that this submerged mass constitutes at
least one-tenth of the entire population. No
effort has hitherto been made to gauge their numbers,
so that it is impossible to speak with accuracy, and
the best that we can do is, to form the nearest feasible
estimate from the various facts which lie to hand
and which are universally admitted.

Let any one who is tempted to doubt the literal truth
of what I say, or to think that the picture is overdrawn,
but place himself at our disposal for a few days,
or weeks, and we will undertake to show him, and that
in districts which are as the very Paradise of India,
thousands of cases of chronic destitution (especially
at certain seasons in the year) such as ought to be
sufficient to melt even a heart of stone!

CHAPTER II.

Whoarenotthesubmergedtenth?

Before passing on to consider of whom the destitute
classes actually consist, it will be well in a country
like India to make a few preliminary remarks regarding
the numbers and position of their more fortunate countrymen
who have employment of some sort, and are therefore
excluded from the category.

The entire population of British India, including
Ceylon, Burmah, and the Native States amounts according
to the Census of 1881 to about two hundred and sixty-four
millions.